The claimant had entered into a F1 car development agreement with companies that specialised in the aerodynamic design of F1 cars. After the agreement ended, the aerodynamicists of those companies immediately started doing design work for a rival team, using the Force India CAD files as the basis for the rival design. The judge held that the two defendant companies that operated the rival team, Team Lotus, had infringed the Force India's copyright by downloading electronic copies of the new designs, which incorporated Force India's designs. The judge also found that employees of the design companies had misused the confidential files only by using them as a shortcut, and had not reproduced the information in their new design. He therefore awarded equitable compensation for that misuse by estimating what fee the parties would have negotiated at the relevant time for such use of the files, had they been willing to do so. He awarded the claimant compensation of EUR25,000 on this basis, but offset this against EUR846,230 of unpaid fees, which he found Force India owed under the development agreement.

Force India Formula One Team Ltd v 1 Malaysia Racing Team SDN BHD and others [2012] EWHC 616 (Ch)